Intel Reports Record Revenue and Profit in Q3

Semiconductor giant Intel has managed to finish another strong quarter with a record breaking revenue of $14.3 billion (10,38 billion Euros), up $3.2 billion (2.32 billion Euros) or 29 percent year-over-year, according to the latest financial results posted by the company.

The chip maker also set new records for microprocessor unit shipped and it expects this number to grow in the next quarter, when Intel believes notebook computers will generate $14.7 billion (10.67 billion Euros) in revenue.

Intel's strong results in the consumer CPU market were also helped by Apple's record breaking 4.86 million Mac PCs shipped which means that the chip maker sold between 12 and 15 million chips to Apple alone.

"Intel delivered record-setting results again in Q3, surpassing $14 billion in revenue for the first time, driven largely by double-digit unit growth in notebook PCs," said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO.

"We also saw continued strength in the data center fueled by the ongoing growth of mobile and cloud computing," concluded Mr. Otellini.

The only area where the Santa Clara chip makers has been forced to admit defeat is the low-power market, where the Atom platform is under severe pressure from smartphones and tablets.

According to Intel's report, the Atom microprocessor and chipset achieved just 269 million dollar (195.4 milion Euros) revenue, which means that the company witnessed a 32% drop compared to last year.

This drop is sales went to companies building system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices based on the ARM architecture such as Apple's A4 and A5, Nvidia Tegra 2, Qualcomm Snapdragon and Texas Instruments OMAP.

Intel's financial report also details the company's expectations for the fourth quarter of 2011, when the chip maker believes it will see 14.7 billion USD (10,6 billion Euros) in revenue, while gross margin should fall somewhere between 64% and 68%.